26 January 2010 – Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, announced today that Jose L. Valera has joined its Houston office as a partner in the Corporate & Securities practice.

Mr. Valera focuses his practice on domestic and international energy transactions, and has more than 25 years of legal experience representing oil, gas and electric energy companies throughout the U.S., Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. Examples of the kind of work he has done for these global companies include exploration and production contracts, investment agreements, upstream development projects, M&A, joint ventures, LNG regasification projects and thermal and renewable generation projects.

“Mayer Brown presents a great opportunity for me to continue to build my practice on a truly global scale,” Mr. Valera said. “The firm’s global platform and recent association with Tauil & Chequer in Brazil are very attractive to me. I look forward to working with the other partners to further expand the corporate and energy practices.”

Mr. Valera has worked on a wide variety of energy transactions around the world, especially in Latin America. A native Spanish speaker, he has represented oil companies in their negotiations for exploration and production rights and M&A transactions in countries such as Argentina, Colombia, Iraq, Russia, Peru and Venezuela. He also has extensive experience working for developers of electric generation facilities across Latin America, including in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Mexico.

“Jose brings to Mayer Brown a proven track record of dealmaking in the energy practice that will help us grow our service offerings in Houston and further strengthen our Global Energy and Corporate & Securities practices,” said Michael E. Niebruegge, former partner-in-charge of the Houston office.

With the addition of Mr. Valera, Mayer Brown’s Houston office has now hired three partners in the last eight months to expand the Global Energy practice. Rob Goldberg joined from Chadbourne & Parke’s Houston office in May 2009, where he was a partner.

Mr. Valera is a former member of the board of directors of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators and is a frequent speaker on energy matters at professional conferences. A native of Peru, he earned a JD from the Catholic University of Peru and also earned a JD from the South Texas College of Law in Houston.

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